The present invention concerns panel display devices of the type which include large numbers of gas-filled cells arrayed in rows and columns and energizable selectively to display a character or message or any other form of display. To date, such devices have appeared as laboratory models under investigation from time to time over a period of many years, but no one has yet succeeded in making a commercial device. In general, such devices include at least two electrodes, an anode and a cathode, for each cell, and a separate driver circuit for each cathode and each anode, or for each row of cathodes and each column of anodes, for applying thereto the voltages needed to turn on each cell and generate visible glow therein.
Although panels can be operated in this way, it can be seen that, in a panel which includes thousands of cells, the provision of a separate driver for each cathode and each anode, or even for each row and column of cells, is prohibitively expensive and complex. The prior art provides no satisfactory solution to this problem.